


Suicide in the Third Person

by groundcontrol



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2019-11-28 17:10:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18211172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundcontrol/pseuds/groundcontrol
Summary: "Protocol Five; in the absence of direction, resume your host's life."To the future, Philip Pearson's life is an incomplete thought, but 3326 should have known better than to assume that it held no consequence. When Philip's past comes knocking, he is forced to deal with the outcome of his absence from his day-to-day life, and of the people that were left behind by his arrival. Facing the death of his roommate, his failed academic career, an estranged family and an angry friend, 3326 will have to build himself up from nothing to find a home in the twenty-first century. To create a future from these grim prospects, he will have to address the one person that he has desperately trying to avoid; Philip Pearson himself.An attempt to build a life for the one character who didn't get to have one.Cannon-compliant; told between the moments of the show.





	1. Chapter 1

_“A title is not a title; it is the first line.” -Marianne Moore_

He wasn’t quite sure how he’d missed it. Traveler 3326 had always had an eye for detail- he still wasn’t quite sure how Philip Pearson had managed to change that. 

Sighing, he stared down at the hypodermic needle at his forearm and quickly averted his eyes as his vision began to shake. That wasn’t true. He knew exactly how this had happened. 

Furrowing his brow and inhaling sharply, he looked down at the veins bulging from the crook of his elbow once more. The elastic band was drawn taut, hiked up over his bicep and under the rolled cuff of his sleeve. He took a quick inventory of the track marks, noting which were most susceptible to infection, where he shouldn’t be injecting to avoid collapsing a vein again because _goddamn had last time ever been a bitch_ , and where he’d managed to bruise himself shooting up in a hurry the other day when the junk sickness had come knocking early. 

Gritting his teeth, Philip drew the syringe under the skin, pulled back the plunger ever so slightly and slammed it home. 

He needed to get the fuck over this thing about needles, and fast. It didn’t help that he still got shaky when he flipped the lid to that little metal box. At least he’d stopped seeing black spots after the first few times. 

His fingers were numb with the first bits of that creeping honey-soft warmth as he undid the tourniquet and fell back into the mess of sheets he hadn’t bothered tidying that morning, or the one before, or the one before. The ceilings folded in on him, and his spine turned liquid as he forgot the bruise on his back or the paper cuts on his fingers from those paper archives they called _books_ and the familiar pull and sting of the bullet wound that still hadn’t healed yet, or was he just not thinking linearly? 

His pupils yawned and stretched along the lines and cracks of the concrete, magnified by fluorescent lighting and the dim glow of the screens outside his room. He breathed deep, his lungs straining away from his sternum to kiss his ribs as his lids fluttered shut. 

Nostrils flaring, he let the smell of stale coffee creep into his nose before the rising tide of metal at the back of his throat drowned it. 

And again, as always, 

_He remembers._

][][][][][][ 

Addiction carves its own hole out in your life. 

It burrows deeper into the space between your ears until there’s only space in the hollow it’s torn out of you for it to fill anymore. It’s a coup d’état; a little at a time until it’s all at once. 

Philip was short-sighted in falling for the promise of easy transition offered by the Director in selecting this host. 

_Young, isolated, estranged._

His digital footprint spoke to a quiet existence with less impact than a kid half his age, and he’d had one friend; the roommate. And that issue was resolved almost as quickly as he’d arrived. Even the family had been a non-issue-- their communication with their son had taken place almost entirely through a rotating door of lawyers after the age of eighteen. 

There would be little accommodation for 3326 to make to not raise any red flags in the 21st. From the outside, an ideal and optimal choice. The most seamless of arrivals, if only because Philip Pearson had been more mystery than matter as far as the rest of the world was concerned. And he’d trusted in the Director, had let himself be sling-shotted back in time into the brain of a host about to die from heroin overdose. 

_No plan ever survives contact with the past._

He’d learned that the hard way, as had the rest of his team. 

Things were barely what they appeared to be according to the average host’s Facebook feed, and they’d had to suffer the consequences of their shoddy preparation. They’d overlooked the details, and they were still paying for it. 

The blood he’d shed over his own burden was still staining the inside of his long-sleeved shirt from that morning. 

He’d been staring at the writing on the wall for about twenty minutes before he blinked, realizing he’d given himself a headache tracing the names and dates over and over with his eyes while his lips moved in unison. He needed a break from the op. If he didn’t get some space between him and the garage, he was going to start doing more stupid shit. 

Handling both the stress of his inherited addiction and the subsequent fallout of the mental breakdown that it initiated in him had taken every spare moment of thought he’d been able to set aside. His senses were simultaneously overwhelmed and muted by his experience in this time so far. The sights and sounds were enough to make a man weep from joy, not to even mention the _food_. 

The day Philip found out that both pizza and delivery were not only available but common, he _did_ cry. He’d never had cheese before. 

But then, there was heroin. 

He’d never felt such trembling ecstasy, shaking and writhing sweaty beneath blankets as his body melted into sugar beneath his tongue.

It was also the worst fucking thing in the world. 

He was useless for about half an hour after a shot but needed it if he was going to keep his hands steady. After, his experiences were filtered, through damp air and opioids. His nerves sang for the first hour, but then punished him by carefully rationing their ability to process for the rest of his day. 

And god help him if he didn’t have one every eighteen hours. 

He shuddered, thinking back to the other day. The point was, he needed out from their hidey hole if he was going to keep himself from either shooting everything he had left in that metal box, or calling in that morning’s host candidates and their T. E. L. L.s in to the FBI again.

You know, like an _idiot_. 

He shot off a text to Marcy, and after a moment’s thought, to Trevor too. 

_Going out for coffee. Dinner’s in the fridge. Love, mom._

Snagging a jacket and shoving his laptop into a messenger bag, he headed east, working his way through the back alleys of Seattle until he came across a café not too far from his host’s previous apartment. 

It was in ideal spot, away from the bustle of the main streets but only a five-minute commute to the college nearby. He was feeling a bit nostalgic for the future, and this was the closest he could come to his own past. That, and maybe he still felt bad about the roommate.

 _He’d watched the life leave his eyes as they’d turned empty and rolled up into his skull, he could almost taste that last breath from across the room as his lips parted and-_

“Can I get you anything today?” 

The barista wasn’t making eye contact, instead staring at the screen of her register, and was clearly near the end of her shift. Her tone said as much, as did the impatient tapping of her fingernails against the counter. 

“Sorry, um.. Can I have a coffee? Two sugars… do you guys do soy milk?” 

He still couldn’t wrap his head around the way cow’s milk tasted, and was never quite able to get past the film it left on his tongue. 

“Yeah, you want that as a large?” She looked him over once, probably noting the shadows beneath his eyes and the faint quiver in his fingers. It had been a trying morning. 

She was looking him in the eye now, with something almost resembling recognition. He coughed and nodded as his throat went dry. It was hard to reconcile other people having known Philip Pearson from before. 

Passing her the appropriate change, he went to drop off his things at an empty table before returning to collect his mug from the counter. She frowned as he did, sliding him a plate with a pastry on it. There was something he couldn’t quite place in her expression. 

“On the house. Sorry to hear about your friend.” 

It clicked. _Pity._

He mumbled a thanks, staring at the toes of his boots as he collected his drink and food to bring it back to where he’d set up his computer. He slumped into the armchair, relaxing into it for just a moment before he sat straight and got to work on tracking a shipment of firearms that had been pinged on the deep web as a red flag in an upcoming mission. 

The coffee was decent, not that they’d even had the stuff in the future. They’d run out of that, and cocoa about four hundred years before 3326 had been born. But this one didn’t sting the back of his throat with bitterness the way that instant crap Trevor had brought by the other week, and it didn’t have that watery feeling that the corner store by the garage did. 

Philip focused on the task before him, pinging servers through proxies halfway across the world to avoid being traced back to his IP address again. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. 

He was about two sips away from the end of his drink with the free cookie little more now than crumbs on his collar, when she walked through the door, the bell tinkling as she did. He didn’t look up from his work. People had been filtering in and out of the place for the past hour since he’d sat down, and he’d moved on to creating identification for their next excursion. 

It had been ten hours, twenty-two minutes since his last shot. 

He was going to need another coffee. Draining the last few dregs in his mug, he was about to get up to order a refill when he ice cubes and sixteen ounces of cold, cold liquid spill down his back and over his head. 

_“You FUCKING ASSHOLE!_ ” 

Spitting out a whole lot of cream and sugar as he surged to his feet, he swivelled around to face his assaulter. 

_“What the hell?_ ” he hissed, squinting past the stickiness in his eyelashes. “ _What_ is your _problem_?” 

The girl in front of him spat in his face. 

“That’s my line, you pathetic piece of shit!” she growled, her lips curled back into a sneer. They were painted a deep burgundy that was beginning to fade at the seams. Her short black hair whipped around her face as she started to poke her finger into his chest. 

“Not _only_ has no one heard a word from you in weeks, which, by the way, _great fucking timing on that_ , I almost failed the entire class, you inconsiderate prick, but you _LET STEPHEN FUCKING DIE_!” 

She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and he doubted she was much taller than five feet, but she was driving him back against that chair with the same power you’d find behind a rottweiler straining against a chain. It didn’t exactly help that he was at a total loss for words. 

“You showed up at the funeral too, but you managed to even fuck _that_ up too! You made his whole goddamn family cry when you showed up _high_ to your _BEST FRIEND’S FUNERAL!_ Do you have brain damage or something? Because I don’t know who the fuck you think you are!” 

At this point, the entire café is staring unabashedly, and he thinks he’d love for it if the paisley carpeting would swallow him whole in that moment. Even the barista, who’d been shooting him sad, pathetic smiles, was looking on in total shock and dismay. 

_“What the fuck do you have to say for yourself?”_

Clearing his throat, he looked down at this seething volcano of a woman and saw her for the first time. He took in the short bob, whose roots were showing a deep brown from his vantage point above her, and she looked like she was drowning in a sea of sheepskin jacket and cable-knit. Her eyes were heavy from the blue circles beneath them, and rapidly turning red and glassy. Her thin, pale fingers trembled as they strained to keep her empty cup steady, and he could taste the bitter and heavy disappointment she was experiencing as surely as he remembered the smell of recycled air. 

“Could we maybe move this outside?” 

She opened her mouth again to tell him that _no, they can do this right fucking here_ , when he raised an open palm and reminded her, “I understand that you’re angry, and I’m more than happy to let you tell me exactly how mad you are, but I’d rather not ruin everyone else’s day any more than I already have”. 

Pausing, her eyes hardened, before she closed her mouth, nodding, and gestured to his coat and bag. 

“Grab your shit. But this is happening _today,_ and this is happening now. You’re not going to keep dodging my calls. You’re dealing with this outside.” 

Her tone was terse, and Philip realized that she had a raspy voice when she wasn’t shouting. It reminded him of the way his fingers twitched when he got annoyed, as if they were looking for something. 

He shoveled his laptop and equipment back into his bag, reached into his jacket pocket and yanked out a rumpled hundred and dropped it at the cash, muttering an apology for the chair. 

The girl was standing rigid, with her arms crossed tightly around her chest. She followed him as he left, two steps behind him as he pushed the café door open and walked out into the dusk. 

][][][][][][ 

“You know, now I’m _really_ regretting my order. If I hadn’t gone for a cold brew, maybe that would’ve given you something to remember your fucking mistakes by! Nothing else in your life seems to leave a friggin’ impression on you, you fucking human garbage fire!” 

Moving to the curb didn’t improve her diplomacy, that was for sure. 

“I’m sorry”, Philip began, wiping dripping coffee from his forehead. “I’m just having some trouble remembering what it is I’m supposed to have done.” 

He winced as he registered her hand connect with his cheek. 

“ _Jesus Christ, lady_!” he shouted, the sting of the impact settling along his right cheekbone. He gingerly raised a hand to it, groaning as his index made contact and came away red. She was wearing a dozen rings, stacked intermittently along her fingers. 

His mind scrambled for a blanket lie, for a fail-safe to get him out from under this mess. It was clear that she wouldn’t stop until he gave her an answer. He just hoped that it was the right one. 

“I don’t remember!” he blurted, dabbing at his face with the back of his hand. 

“I-I don’t remember.” 

And in a moment, the pieces fell into place. As the words tumbled out of his mouth, he hated himself just a bit more every time he moved his lips. 

“I was there that night, that-that’s true”, Philip said, his voice cracking at the end. “I was there when he OD’ed, and I didn’t call the cops. I got spooked, and I’d shot too, right before h-he nodded off. I freaked out and left the apartment to get help, and I.. I don’t remember what happened… I woke up in a hospital two days later, and-and the doctors told me I was lucky to be alive.” 

The girl stepped back, her features twisting from rage to grief, and confusion. Her brow furrowed, and she squinted up at him. 

“What did you call me just now?” 

Her voice was curious, and hesitant. 

He realized he needed a bigger blanket, or he’d blow his cover. Thankfully, this was a card that he could play more than once in this hand. 

“Look, I-I’m sorry if we knew each other before… they told me that I had a stroke while I was high that night”, he continued. “I’m missing… chunks of what I should remember, things have been kind of hazy.” 

Her face fell for a second. Then she moved on to settle on worry, and stepped closer slowly, palms turned upward. 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, I-fuck…”, she mumbled, digging through her pockets and pulling out a Kleenex and using it to mop at Philip’s face. Tears were shining in the corners of her eyes. “I’d heard you got arrested after Stephen…” She sobbed, shaking her head. “I must look li-like a total fucking asshole right now.” 

She paused, pushing her hand onto his chest. 

“You really did leave me up a creek with no goddamn paddle, Phil. And I’m fucking _pissed_ as all hell that you were doing _stupid_ shit with Stephen. This time, you really screwed it all up. You need to get some fucking help!” 

He breathed deep, her small hand warm against his collarbone. “I am.” 

She sobbed again, and shook her head, moving to turn away. He reached out to grab her shoulder before relaxing his fingers, letting them rest there when she turned back to face him. 

“I’m seeing a doctor every day… sort of a live-in sober companion meets drug test with a parking permit. She monitors me, makes sure I’m clean”, he half-lied, leaving out the way they’ve chosen to wean him from drugs. 

They had considered methadone, or suboxone, but paired with both their inoculations and his historian regimen, there were too many interactions to consider. Heroin had been the easiest solution, though he knew it wasn’t sustainable in any sense of the imagination. 

She nods, but there’s still tears in her eyes, about to break free and run wild down her cheeks. She continued to look at him with a heartbroken expression, sniffling quietly and staring at the collar of his shirt, as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. Her hand remained where it was, delicate and warm. 

Philip cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry, but I didn’t quite catch your name? I’m missing a lot if I’m being honest, and that seems to be… a part of all that..” 

He trailed off as she reached out and gathered him and all of the fabric of her coat between her arms, clinging desperately around his chest and pressing her cheek against his shirt. She stayed there, quiet for a minute. Philip could feel the warmth of her tears through the cotton, which turned cold as she wrestled her head away to look up into his eyes. 

“I-I’m Ramona. Mona, actually, you used to-“, she paused, trying to calm her breathing. 

She inhaled. “You used to say that I wasn’t nearly punk enough to be named after a punk band.” Her laugh was watery, and shook more than the uneven staccato of her breaths. 

“You and Steve, you used to joke about how my parents must have hated me just a bit, because kids are mean and sex is fucking hilarious when you’re five. All that bullshit about ‘moan-A’… you were just jealous that your name sucks ass and any idiot on the street could have that in common with you.”

Philip’s arms, which had been glued to his sides throughout this exchange, rose to cover her too, to wrap her even closer to his chest. He was unsure of why he’d given in to the impulse, but the second that they settled around the tops of Mona’s shoulders and his hand cradled the back of her head, he felt something click into place deep beneath his ribs. 

He wasn’t sure how much of Philip Pearson was left in this host, but if anything, the memory of their touch must have been so habitual, so common, that it felt as if he’d been missing something up until now. He took a moment, accidentally inhaling the sweet jasmine of her shampoo and old smoke clinging to her clothes, pausing to catalogue how her features had softened and turned almost beautiful now that she wasn’t screaming or crying. 

“I mean, it is fucking hilarious… still not quite as good as being named after a king, though.” 

Mona scowled, frowning up at him. “I knew that nothing could ever wipe that shit-eating grin off of your face, not even brain damage.”

She smiled sadly, pressing her head back to where she’d first laid it, beneath his collarbone. 3326 realized that he’d been smirking, the corners of his lips uneven and turned up just enough. He relaxed into it, his shoulders unwinding and his fingers twining into her hair. He took another beat there, comfortable for the first time since he’d dosed that morning. 

“D’you… d’you wanna maybe go sit somewhere? Just for a bit? I know this whole thing has been a mess… but I feel like I haven’t been fair to you, and I’d like to hear what’s been going on with you”, she murmured. 

He hesitated, unsure of what he’d be telling her at all, if anything. He’d be scrambling the whole time to spin a thread he wasn’t sure he could follow. 

“I just… I just want to know if you’re safe.”

Her voice was small now, in sharp contrast to all of the shouting she’d been doing earlier. His chest twinged, and he held back a wince. He’d just be digging himself deeper. But on the other hand, clearly Mona was a part of his Protocol 5- a part wholly unaccounted for by the Director and for which he was consequently completely unprepared. If Marcy could manage, then he would have to do the same. 

“Okay… where did you want to go?” 

][][][][][][][ 

They found themselves in a park, still in the heart of the city and more concrete than green. Mona had escorted him to a bench facing a statue of some founder or another mounted on horseback. There was graffiti around the plaque, in thick white paint near impossible to scrape from the dark granite base of the copper-cast monument. It read “FUCKHEAD”. 

Reaching deep into the pockets of her large jacket, she drew out a small bag the size of her palm. As she did so, a dozen pigeons flocked to their spot, jostling each other to get closer. 

“Greedy little beasts. I wish they were stupid enough to forget that I always carry birdseed.” 

She ripped the top of the bag open and began to scatter it about, the pigeons stirring each other into a frenzy as they fed. Philip hadn’t quite expected that, but smiled all the same. It was almost endearing, how she cooed at the birds, dropping seeds until the bag was finished. 

“Steve loved to feed the birds.” 

His spine turned rigid as he turned his head to face her, his mouth a grim line. She continued to watch the pigeons, one of which had moved to her boots to peck at the laces. Mona shook her foot slightly, pushing it away to scrounge for the last of the food on the asphalt. 

“We all used to come out to this park to go for a smoke, or sit out in the sun a bit if it wasn’t raining. Then he started bringing bread, until you told him that it was the equivalent of feeding a diabetic sugar cubes”, she reminisced, rummaging through her pockets once more. 

Pulling out a mostly-empty packet of Marlboros and a small yellow Bic lighter, she shook out a cigarette and placed it in the right corner of her mouth. Her fingers tried to light the flame, but the butane wouldn’t catch. Sighing, she cast him an inquisitive look. “Got a light?”

Philip nodded absently, finding his zippo and lifting it to her face. “Thanks”, she added, exhaling smoke through her nose. It had a wide bridge, and looked like it had been broken once or twice at some point. 

“After that, Steve would show up with birdseed so often that he would get flocked every time he walked anywhere near this spot. I picked up the habit after a while, but you never quite got into it. You still sat with us, though.” Mona breathed out, tilting her head up to face the sky and closing her eyes. The smoke floated up to melt into the humid evening. 

It would rain soon, he could feel it against his skin. He wasn’t quite sure what to say at this point. They let the silence lapse into another moment before a thought occurred to him. 

“Was I supposed to do something, or be somewhere recently? You said something about a class, but everything’s been kind of… hazy lately”, Philip said quietly. “I… I think I’d like to make it up to you, if that’s okay…” 

At that, Mona’s wistful eyes crinkled at the corners. “We were in a history class together. We decided to pair up for the final project, but after the whole incident with Steve…”, she paused, gathering her thoughts. “You never showed up again. You didn’t answer my calls, or my texts… I figured you’d either skipped town or got a new burner and didn’t bother programming in my number before you switched.”

“I got stuck having to scramble to finish the whole thing, but the prof was nice enough to give me an extension because he’d heard what had happened. Still haven’t finished the exam though, so I’m not sure how I did yet”, she continued, still facing the sky. 

“It was… a challenge, to say the least. The last few weeks have been… hard. It was bad enough that Steve was gone, but you…” 

Her breathing became shaky once again, and she raised the cigarette back to her lips. The filter was stained the colour of dried blood, and her lipstick had further deteriorated. 

“I don’t know what I would do if I lost you too.” 

His throat was tight- Philip wasn’t sure he could even manage to suck in a breath, let alone speak. Instead, he raised left arm to carefully, cautiously rest around her shoulders. She’d hugged him before, right? He just felt terrible leaving her to mourn a boy who had lost his life alongside her other friend weeks ago. 

She laughed, short and loud, startling him. Instead of drawing away, she leaned into his arm. 

“If I’m being entirely honestly, I didn’t really want to see you for a bit. Not after what I thought happened- if you’d actually left Steve there alone to die…” His teeth were clenched hard around his tongue, willing the truth to step back from his lips and burrow back into the box of things he didn’t like to think about, deep in the far corner of his mind. 

“I mean, we were kind of all you had left... I don’t think you’d heard from your parents in almost eight months before this whole shit-show went down”, Mona continued. “Steve’s family is still… fragile over the whole thing, but they never knew you quite as well as we did.” 

Her lips quirked upward slightly at that, and she pulled on her cigarette again. As she did, she pulled out the pack again, and shook it near his lap. 

“Sorry, forgot my manners. You want one?” 

“I don’t smoke, but thank you”, Philip replied, as his eyes remained glued to the box. They tracked it closely, and his fingers twitched again. Mona shot him a look of disbelief. 

“You never smoked a ton, but, Phil… you always went for one when you were upset. Said it helped you calm down- something about breathing?” 

His hand moved of its own volition, making an aborted trail to the packet. 

“You might not remember all that much right now, but I _know_ you, Philip Pearson. And I can see how hard this conversation is for you. Take one.” 

The box was shaken once again, and he relaxed into it, letting the cigarette settle between his index and middle finger. It found a home in the right corner of his mouth, and the zippo was produced once more, but Mona shook her head. 

“Save the butane. Do the dirty”, she quipped, grinning past the tear tracks on her cheeks. She lifted her own up, the lit end pressed to his. “Pull.” 

Inhaling, the tobacco and paper caught, and smoke rushed into his lungs. He coughed, his eyes stinging as the smoke slipped out of his nose to irritate them. As he recovered, he wheezed out a groan. 

“You-you’re sure that I actually used to smoke? Because this doesn’t feel right”, he gasped. 

She was giving him that same, strange look when he met her eyes, before she blinked and rolled her eyes. “You’re not doing it right. Inhale into your mouth and hold it for a second, then inhale a second time through your nose to carry it through your chest. You can’t just puff on it like you’re hitting a blunt- you don’t smoke nearly often enough to get away with that shit.” 

He followed her instructions cautiously, as she mimed each action with far too much exaggeration. Like he was a child being taught how to read the hands of a clock. Nicotine buzzed at the tips of his fingers as his head turned slightly floaty. His anxiety at being faced with a confrontation from his host’s past had all but abated, and he found himself able to string words together again. 

“This whole mess really did do a number on your head, huh?” Her voice had become fragile again, small as the hand resting on his forearm. The corners of her eyes were wet again, and she was using the other to flick ash away distractedly, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. 

“They said something about… retrograde amnesia? About missing bits and pieces”, he threw out, taking another drag to steady his nerves. “Might come back. Might not.” 

She sat in silence for another moment, throwing the butt of her smoke out by her feet and grinding it into the ground with the heel of her boot. 

“And… and your-your… problem? How… have you been able to manage?” 

She was so hesitant in bringing up this question that she once again was unable to meet his gaze. Philip got the impression that his drug use had been a point of contention, _obviously_ , as she seemed sober enough. 

“Like I said… I have a doctor checking in on me regularly. Everything is… as good as it can be, considering…” Mona nodded firmly, burrowing deeper into his side. 

“I’m glad you’re getting help.”

“Me too”, he said, drawing his arm tighter, avoiding a wince as the skin of his inner elbow stretched through track marks, the pull of the bullet wound of his hip making his breath catch. He stared straight ahead, looking out at Stephen’s pigeons. 

“Me too.”


	2. Daydreamin' Drugs the Pain of Living

_“I'm porous with travel fever but you know I'm so glad to be on my own, still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger can set up trembling in my bones.” -Joni Mitchell_

They’d exchanged numbers.

He’d realized from the moment she’d escorted him to the park, hand in hand, that there would be no disappearing into the woodwork, as had been his original intention. Philip Pearson was meant to quietly slide away from everything he’d known, and to dedicate himself wholly to their cause.

Mona made that difficult.

Now, he had _obligations_ , ones that he didn’t quite understand.

Clearly, they were close, but she hadn’t defined their relationship past that. A brief peek into her digital presence only gave him more information about her, rather than allow him to understand what his next move was meant to be.

Middling grades through high school; a slight dip in performance at the beginning of her sophomore year before they steadily crept back up over the course of the semester. One credit card, lower middle-class family, one sister, a mother who’d passed away from mesothelioma a year and a half ago. Last year of college, registered to attend university in the fall for an English Lit program. Clean record and little to go off of from social media, apart from a private Instagram page followed only by two dozen people.

Curious, he’d taken a look behind that closed door.

He’d regretted it almost immediately.

Countless pictures, videos, all featuring Mona and a group of friends. But the worst part was how heavily his host had featured in most of the media posted on her page, alongside his roommate.

_Stephen. Steve._

Sunny days in the skate park, with Philip attempting tricks on rails and the half-pipe, falling more often than not and laughing as he laid on his back, blood on his elbows and knees and bruises speckling his exposed skin. Stephen pouring water down his back as he swatted at the bottle, Mona’s raspy laugh in the background.

Late night drinks in dim lighting at a crowded bar somewhere downtown, Philip’s voice shouting over the music as Steve laughed, clutching his sides and grasping at his beer. Mona’s hand in the corner of the frame, fingers clenched and middle finger pointed straight at him, accusing.

Clips of Steve fiddling around with a guitar, with drums, with every instrument in the goddamn band in his apartment with friends scattered around a table. The last had been from six months before his arrival, and his host had been there with them, feet kicked up on the coffee table and a crooked grin on his face.

Shots of a trio of girls, in domestic settings as well as social occasions. For some, she was in the pictures, others, she had clearly asked someone else to take them. Sometimes he and his roommate joined them, all five squashed onto an L-shaped couch in an apartment with high ceilings.

It became very clear that they’d been very close prior to Philip Pearson’s death.

It was obvious to him that he’d had this problem consistently with substance abuse, as many of the items she’d put on her story had included his host in a number of potentially compromising positions. Puffing on joints the width of his index, holding red solo cups or bottles of liquor, even a handful of photos of him with his tongue stuck out, pills on his tongue as he grinned with unfocused pupils.

He could see the red in his eyes in almost every instance, watched his slow deterioration over the past year in self care. His hair began to appear unkempt where before he’d kept it tied back or left it loose and healthy. His clothes were more rumpled, and he’d lost interest in sleep or a balanced diet.

But still, he appeared just as often in her pictures, though more reserved and slightly surly.

Mona was nothing if not persistent. Not only that, but Philip Pearson was apparently far more secretive than the Director, or 3326 had ever given him credit for.

He’d received her text the morning of what was to be his final mission. Too upset by not only his setback in weaning himself off heroin when taken hostage, but also the new weight of expectation weighing on him in discovering his Protocol 5, he’d ignored it.

Regardless of his stubborn refusal to even open the message in the hours where it had seemed doubtful that they’d be able to even activate their x-ray laser, it had gnawed at the corner of his mind. In the moment where he’d been certain that they would perish for their cause, he’d caved to his curiosity. Philip wasn’t ready to die with more questions on his conscience.

_Hey, have your stuff from the aprtmnt- wanna get a drink later so I can pass it on?_

As they’d driven the van back to the garage, he’d typed out a reply with shaking hands, adrenaline from their brush with death making his heart pound and his stomach twist.

_Tonight, 9_

It was still late afternoon by the time they pulled into the garage, the late March sun sitting low in the sky. He had time for a shot before they met.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled the bathroom door closed and found the tin.

][][][][][][][

She’d asked him to meet by a corner store not far from the park they’d sat in the last time.

Mona was already waiting for him there, this time in a pair of high waisted jeans rolled at the cuffs and a half-tucked t-shirt that had seen better days. Her knee-length coat flapped in the breeze, and she puffed on a cigarette as she picked at the plastic bag hanging from her wrist.

“Let’s go to the skate park”, she announced, stubbing out her smoke and striding off. He hurried to catch up to her.

She seemed upset, but he’d never known her as anything but. But there was a furrow between her brows that Philip was certain had not been there the last time they’d spoken face to face. Her gait was brisk, where last time she’d walked slowly beside him. They walked without speaking, ducking through an alley or two as he followed behind.

After hopping the fence to get in, they headed to the ramp, setting up shop at the top and letting their feet dangle over the side. Mona sighed, reaching into her bag and frowning slightly as she twisted around. Her hand emerged with a can of Black Label Dry, and passed it over to him before taking another for herself. He accepted it with a cautious hand, and she cracked hers open. Following her lead, Philip did the same, the smell of hops and carbonation washing over him.

His hands were not steady.

She dug back in, elbow-deep in canvas, before pulling out a slightly smaller plastic bag. It rustled as she dropped it into his lap, the sounds of fabric rubbing against the disposable shopping bag breaking through the quiet of the night.

“Those are yours.”

With cautious fingers, Philip peeled back the plastic, his brow furrowed as he pulled out a selection of clothing. A few band shirts, a thick flannel with a cigarette hole in the hem, some sweatpants, a jean patch jacket. Setting down his can beside him, he shook the last item open, the rest piled carefully between them. The front and back of the coat were decorated in badges and pins, likely accumulated over years of careful curating. The style was in keeping with his host’s tastes, and he found himself tempted to throw it on, but folded it once more to set aside.

He turned to look at Mona, who was gnawing at the second knuckle of her index. “Thanks.”

She blinked, putting her hand down in her lap in a quick motion as she made a half-hearted attempt to point back at the bag. “There’s something else for you in there.”

She was right. A smooth, flat surface laid beneath his fingers, his palms running along the cool, slick cover of some kind of book. Frowning, he pulled it out under the park lights. A black, matte hardcover book sat on his knees, held in place by his fingertips. There were no designs or detailing on the outside, something he’d come to understand was unusual in the twenty-first. People from this time enjoyed being ostentatious; thought they could afford to be.

He flipped open the cover, drawing a sharp breath that rang through his lungs as a rushing filled his ears with white noise.

_A photo album._

“I figured you’d like the reminder.”

Mona’s voice cut through the ring in his head and brought him back to awareness. His mouth was dry, and his hands had gone clammy. He didn’t want to face his past. Especially not here, in front of her, not when he himself had no idea about what Philip Pearson had actually been like.

But she’d already pushed aside the clothes to scoot closer to him, sitting so close that their knees grazed. Sighing, she carefully touched the clear-covered photo.

It was of the three of them. Philip, Stephen and Ramona, sat smiling in the park bench they’d gone to the last time. Stephen was in the process of throwing large fistfuls of birdseed at the pigeons, while his host had his head tipped back, his eyes screwed shut as he laughed. Mona was rolling her eyes, hands stuffed in her coat’s pockets.

“I thought we could go through some of these tonight, see if it jogs your memory”, she mumbled, picking up her beer and taking a sip. “The best ones are in here, you guys used to keep this on the coffee table.”

He knew it was a bad idea. If he said yes, he would have to face details of both lives that had been lost on that first night. He’d have to contend with everything he’d consequently taken from this girl, who was clearly so lost, so _alone_ that she’d still found her way back into his life. Philip couldn’t give her what she was looking for. She would never get her friends back.

He could see it in the vulnerability in her eyes, in how she was so eager to remind him of the person she thought he could be again. This would one day break her.

On the other hand, turning her down would hurt her even more. The rejection might just send her spiralling.

3326 had caused enough pain in her life. He decided, then and there, that he would follow his Protocol Five.

She was the last of anything Philip Pearson had in the world. He wouldn’t leave her alone to face it.

“Sounds good.”

Her mouth broke out into a grin, a sliver of her teeth visible through burgundy lipstick.

Reaching across again, she flipped the page.

“I’ve already taken you to the park, so no need to explain that one… Oh! This is a good one!”

It was the first time he’d heard her excited, and it almost made him forget the minefield he was about to navigate. The breathy exhilaration in her voice, the way the pitch shifted higher as she smiled as she spoke. It made him want to laugh, to pore over the pages with her for the rest of the night, early into the day.

Until she pointed to the page, and he saw. Until he remembered the look that Stephen had given him, for just a breath, for just a moment before he gasped for breath and _foaming at the corners of his lips while they turned as blue as the eyes of that piece of shit he saw looking in the mirror every-_

“This one is from my senior year, I think it was April? The pool was still empty, we used to leave lawn chairs out there all the time, that way Martina couldn’t look out the window and yell at us for smoking.”

Mona was looking at him, teeth bared and flashing under the park lights.

_This is your Protocol 5._

Philip looked back down again, breathing deeply through his nose. It wasn’t as jarring this time around, and he was able to see a large, in-ground swimming pool that had clearly been emptied for the winter, and perched on a single lounge chair were both Mona and Stephen.

She had on dark sunglasses, her hair longer than he’d seen it in any pictures yet, reaching just past the pale skin of her shoulders, exposed by a halter top. She sat at the end of the chair, her legs folded beneath her as she leaned towards his roommate, her wrist poised to clink a crystal-cut glass against Steve’s own. She was smiling widely and wearing high-waisted shorts that clashed with Stephen’s swim trunks. Steve was sitting squarely at the top of the chair, oriented towards Mona but grinning at the camera. He had on a black tank top under a Hawaiian-print shirt, and one hand on the small of Mona’s back. He hadn’t yet grown a full beard yet, with just the beginnings of dark facial hair starting to come in.

“We’d go sunbathe on nice days, and we’d bring over the shittiest six-pack or 40 that we could find, and we’d make you go bring out the good China”, she reminisced, laughing. “You always complained we didn’t have to bring anything, that you had _better_ beer in the fridge waiting. But there was something reaaaaal satisfying about sipping Bud out of those glasses.”

He frowned. Hadn’t his family been more concerned about their behaviour? They’d clearly been below the legal drinking age, and Mona was implying that they had regularly cut class to drink. This was all clearly taking place at his host’s home, and in following that logic, it should have fallen to his parents to discourage them from doing these things.

“What don’t you understand?”

Her voice was pointed, and she had clearly picked up on his confusion.

Philip cleared his throat. “Um… why didn’t my parents… make us go to school? Or try to stop us from doing this stuff?”

Mona’s eyes grew sad for a moment, before she blinked, and something shifted.

“Your parents weren’t… I mean, you guys didn’t get along even when they _were_ in the country, and distance didn’t really seem to help much. And to be honest… they were kind of assholes.”

Picking up her can again, she drank deep. “They kind of wrote you off the second you started to act out… they never really paid attention again. At least, not to the stuff that mattered, like what you were good at, or what you cared about- it was always just enough to keep up appearances.”

“Or at least, that’s the impression that I got”, she amended a sip later. “You were always miserable whenever they were around, and you basically started living at our houses after shit got bad with…”

Catching herself, she paused. “I’ll save that one for another night. You have enough to go through right now.”

Philip exhaled quietly, letting go of a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He flipped the page.

Mona brightened again at the bar scene, the three of them lined up with their backs to the camera, sitting on high stools. Mona was sat in the middle, swaddled in the sheepskin jacket he’d seen her in when they met. Her hands appeared to be clasped under her chin, and her face invisible, facing front. To her left, Steve was half-turned to face her, leaning on one elbow and clearly in the middle of some heated debate. In a t-shirt and jeans, he appeared older than in the first photo. Philip Pearson was to Mona’s right, in a long-sleeved shirt layered with a band shirt on top, the tour dates glared out from his turned back. He also faced the bartender, his right hand holding three fingers up lazily.

“This one was at your favourite bar, Bernard’s on Seneca. It’s got shitty service, but shots are like two dollars and they make halfway decent food for next to nothing”, she explained. “This was maybe six months ago?”

“Did we go often?” He felt compelled to find out more about his previous life, and to adjust accordingly. _Within reason._ He couldn’t afford more than one habit.

“You could say that.” She smiled, her eyes cast downwards. “For awhile, we were there every weekend we didn’t have stuff due or work the next day.”

Pausing, Mona sighed. “Not in the past few months though. It was nearly impossible to convince either of you to leave the apartment. This was one of the last times we went since…”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

The next moment was one of domesticity. Steve was sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees and a controller in his hands. He looked more tired, dark circles beneath his eyes fixed on the TV screen, and the picture appeared to be recent. Mona was sitting at his feet, between them, leaning back on the bottom of the sofa with Philip’s head in her lap. She wore sweatpants and a scissor-cropped band shirt, cut halfway through the logo. Her legs were loosely crossed, and her fingers appeared to be carding through his hair. In the photo, he appeared to be asleep, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. He was in a long-sleeved dark shirt, as was Stephen.

He didn’t have to guess why.  

“This one… this one was the most recent. I think Frankie took it… it was about three months ago.”

3326 looked to her, waiting for more of a background to be drawn for him, for context to be given. She remained silent, her brow furrowed once more. Her previous cheer had been drained out by the sight of the photo, and the topic they were inching around.

“I’d rather not talk much about this one. You didn’t have a good night”, she murmured, her fingers skimming the plastic cover. “Steve thought you’d um…”

Sniffling, she blinked and looked away, a hand quickly raised to swipe at her eyes.

He decided not to press the issue.

_Time to move on._

He turned the page.

Mona zoned in on the next photo, of herself with her fingers supporting a pair of mugs while Philip sat in the café he had met her in, slouched in a paisley-print armchair. His hair was a few inches shorter and well-kept, and he appeared to be in much better health than he was in his current situation. He had one slightly tanned arm extended, wrapping around the dip of her waist to drag her down into his lap. He was laughing, and so was she, her feet just beginning to leave the ground as her apron also flew up. Her torso was already half-collapsed onto his own, and pale light from what seemed to be a rainy day typical of Seattle illuminated their heads from the window behind them.

“Steve took this one.”

He had _so many_ questions. “Do you work there? When was this taken?”

Her expression flickered from confusion, to understanding, before settling on an emotion he couldn’t place. She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“I work there, yeah, I have for a few years. You ran into me on my day off, the other week.”

_What a coincidence._

_Well, then, I suppose that she doesn’t see it that way._

Thinking back to the day he’d met Mona, he held back a wince. He was lucky she hadn’t done worse than a slap to the face. They were all three of them part of a larger whole, and his sudden appearance at her workplace after what he’d done was like spitting in the face of their entire friendship.

“It was taken… about a year and a half ago? I think it was our first semester in college”, she cut in, tucking her bangs partially behind her left ear. A handful of piercings winked back at him under the park lights, and he could see a sprig of flowers below the lobe of her ear, hiding along her neck. They were blue, with starry yellow and white centres and tiny, delicate petals and leaves.

Clearing his throat, he pointed at the spot. “Those are… they’re nice.”

The colour drained from her face for a moment, as she worried her bottom lip beneath her front teeth and frowned, slightly. Shaking her head, her hair hiding them once more, she took a breath and her eyes going blank. “They’re… new. But thank you”, she replied, rushing the last part of her sentence. She wouldn’t make eye contact.

Philip turned the page again, pushing the thoughts creeping in out of his mind.

The next scene showed the three of them once more, this time with the camera turned to face them all as Steve’s arms bracketed the shot, clearly having taken the picture himself. Philip was crammed in on his left side, his chin resting comfortably on his friend’s shoulder as he made a silly face. His lower jaw jutting out, his teeth were exposed in an exaggerated grin that dragged back and upward sharply at the corners. He was in good shape in this one, much like the previous page, with his hair brushed straight and pulled into a small bun, hairs escaping to rest on his forehead. Mona was similarly positioned on Stephen’s other side, curled delicately into the cage of his arms, a soft smile for once, her eyes closed gently. Both she and Philip had small freckles scattered over noses and cheekbones. Steve was simply tan, with thick stubble highlighting his dimples. They appeared to be sitting in- was that a _pizza parlour?_

3326 felt his mouth water at the thought of cheese, tomato, crust-

Looking back down, he noticed the retro feel of the restaurant. The booth had red and white vinyl siding, and the waitress in the background filling a patron’s beer glass was wearing the classic A-line dress uniform. The lighting was soft and natural, but the photo had been obviously taken at night, with the dark reflection of the window behind them.

“That’s at Scarolie’s, the year we forgot about home cooking. I think we were there often enough that they knew us all by name”, Mona pitched in. “You were living between mine and Steve’s, this was right before you guys moved out together.”

“Why didn’t you move in with us?”

The question spilled out of him almost unprompted, as he felt the cool weight of the beer can under his hand. They had all been close, as evidenced by the casual physical contact shared between the three of them. It would only make sense to seek cohabitation in the 21st with people that you felt close to.

It also hadn’t helped him narrow down if Mona had been romantically involved with his host, with Steve, or with neither of them. For all he knew, Philip Pearson and his roommate had been seeing each other.

But she had the shroud of a widow on, mourning both Stephen and the man he had been before. She had been in the midst of grief for weeks, that much was clear.

In response to his remark, she laughed. “I’d never get any work done with the two of you around all of the time. You always had the bong out, and Steve went along with anything you suggested.”

Her eyes grew sad as she recognized the implications in the same moment that he did.

He’d been the one to bring his friend into the mess he’d fallen in with.

_Stevie asked if the dope needed to cutting, eyes unfocused and fixed on the needle held aloft between his fingers while he cooked his own shot, the butane scorching the underbelly of the spoon over his coffee table. He shook his head with manic energy, the music swelling like the curve of his vein under the tight pull of the elastic around his bicep-_

Shaking his head, 3326 jolted himself from memories he couldn’t have had, moments before the death that dragged him into the 21st.

“I moved in with some of our mutual friends instead. They were all heading to college too, so it seemed like a good fit.”

He nodded absently.

_That wasn’t normal. That was not supposed to happen._

His host had died on the moment of his arrival. There was nothing left of Philip Pearson but a stack of polaroids and a small, grieving girl who couldn’t look him in the eye.

Not after what he’d done.

“You got real, real hard to talk to near… near the end. You were always out when I came over, or busy with other things. You got… I didn’t really _call_ you on anything specific, but… there was one time that you got real, _real_ angry when I brought up that you weren’t doing Oxys anymore… that you’d obviously moved on to something more… serious.”

Her voice was small, and she took another heavy drink from her can, draining it. Mona reached back through her bag and wriggled another can out of the plastic ring six-pack. Opening it, she drank some more, and then some more.

Coughing, she continued to stare at the ground. “I wish I’d never left you two alone. I should have moved in with you when you asked. That’s when it all went downhill.”

Another swig. She looked up into the distance, eyes searching the city lights for purchase.

Not knowing what to say, he took a sip of the beer as well, the hops dancing past the dead of his senses to tickle his nose. He sneezed quietly, taking another drink to rehydrate his dry mouth.

A moment passed.

“You shouldn’t have. I would have just dragged you down with me. I mean, _look at what I did to Stevie_.”

He hadn’t said that. 3326 had thought it, had considered the weight of those words. But he would swear until the day he died and by the Director, that was _Philip Pearson_ opening his mouth.

_Maybe those hallucinations are setting in early. Marcy said I had until tomorrow, but who knows how it interacts with everything else in my system…_

“You don’t get to say that.”

He faced her sharply, tense from her tone.

She repeated, “ _You don’t get to say that._ ”

Swigging deeply, she turned to face him, eyes hard. “You almost had me fooled.”

Panic set in.

“That sob story about the memory loss… I was ready to believe just about anything that you said when I ran into you”, she scoffed, scrounging for a cigarette. Cursing, she ripped the pack from her pocket, shaking one out. Philip’s hand extended, and huffing, she passed it to him. He’d barely even noticed himself doing it, the numb feeling of _fear_ was eating at his nerve endings. To be fair, he rationalized, she wouldn’t be handing over a cigarette if she wasn’t just as ready to forgive him.

“You almost convinced me a few times, with all of the questions and the sad looks, but I can’t pretend that I’m just going to lie down and take it anymore. Because you don’t _get_ to forget what’s convenient! You don’t _get_ to just start fresh, not after what you’ve done!”

“You see, Phil, the thing is”, she sniped, lighting her cigarette with a pause. “I’ve known you for longer than you knew Steve.”

_Oh shit._

His heart was in his throat, he would have swallowed it into the pit in his stomach had he been able to work past his tongue, which had gone limp and twisted in his mouth. Her voice told him that an accusation was inbound, and there would be no easy out this time.

Meeting his gaze sharply, she set her drink down with a quiet thud and squared her shoulders.

“So I spoke to Janie- you remember Janie, right? I live with her, and she’s in her undergrad in Psych right now. She’s been taking some real, real interesting classes about neuroscience, and how the brain works when it’s been traumatized. Stuff like physical damage, _strokes._ ”

He could feel his chest rise and fall, but he wasn’t sure if he could breathe anymore, or even fucking _blink_ at that point.

“When I mentioned what you told me, she had some interesting things to tell me about how amnesia and memory loss works. And let me tell you, your story does _not_ hold up to that. Not at all.”

Philip’s vision folded in until she was the only thing he could see. The rest of his world went dark, as his host’s past crumbled in on him. He knew that there would be no talking his way out of this mess, not with the look Mona had in her eyes, or with the set of her mouth.

“You see, you can forget the event that caused it entirely, you can lose the ability to commit new memories, or you can lose an entire chunk of time. But what you can’t do…”

She took a puff.

“What you can’t do is forget pieces. You lose time, not parts, not whole people. Maybe if you’d forgotten Steve, but remembered me, I would have bought that bullshit you’re trying to sell me. But you remember him, so you _must_ remember me. There’s no two ways about it.”

Mona exhaled the smoke from the corners of her mouth, letting it deep slowly into the cool night breeze.

And in that moment, 3326 realized what she wanted.

“So you’re going to tell me exactly what the _fuck_ really happened that night, or I’m calling the cops myself.”


	3. There Is a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In

_“There is no time; there is only day and night.” -Leonard Cohen_

“E-excuse me?”

His mouth was dry, tacky against the dead weight of his tongue.

“I need you to be honest with me for the first time in a year”, Mona hashed out. “And I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“Why are you lying about not remembering me?”

Tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes, fat and bright under the burnt orange of the park’s lamps. But she remained firm, staring at him like she had a point to prove.

_She does have a point to prove._

“I’m waiting, Philip.”

_Fuck._

_FUCK._

His mind raced, running circuits through lies and half-truths, but none stood up to the lead weight of her eyes on him. Stephen’s death had always been his fault. 3336 had signed his name on the dotted line; promised to let history take its course and allow people to die like they always had. And he would have to look on, unflinching as fate took hold and took them from him.

Traveler 3326 had let Philip Pearson’s friend die.

He had watched the arresting officer trying to bring justice to him clutch at his arm, then his chest, as years of bad eating and a sedentary lifestyle took their toll. He had seen death, and was morbidly familiar with its cold gaze.

And yet, Mona’s stare burned him, brought fire to his fingertips as his heart raced and ran up his throat.

_Fuck._

He ran through his Rolodex of ideas, before finally coming to settle on a version of the truth.

_It’ll have to be enough._

_I’ll have to make it be enough for her._

He had played the amnesia card on the wrong hand, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t play it again. Besides, his thoughts were too muffled in opiates to reach much farther. Once again, Philip regretted shooting up before heading out that night. There might be a more elegant, a less flawed method, but that was beyond him right then.

Clearing his throat, he took a sip of beer to moisten his mouth.

“Okay… the truth is…”

She leaned in slightly, eyes set on his own, watching for signs of deception. He was at the mercy of his host body, and its tells. This was Mona’s home field advantage, and 3326 had the impression that she had experience with Philip Pearson’s lies in spades.

“I-I… I don’t remember anything about either of you. You, or Stephen”, he started, looking down. The shame was burning on his cheeks. He could feel it clawing its way up his throat, with the regret, the guilt of a thousand deaths he had memorized in a future that would maybe never come to pass. Heat shot through his fingers and up through his face, sickly and shaking.

He would do anything to make it stop.

“I mean, I know _some_ things, like how I don’t talk to my parents, how I grew up here… but…”

_I know what the Director told me. What he told all of us._

He looked up, salt running down his face. His eyes bored into hers with an intensity he hadn’t been able to feel in almost a month. He had moved past the numbness of opioids,

“The only thing I remember about Steve is watching him d-die, on that fucking couch, looking me in the eyes while I just went _blank.”_

_He could see it now, taste the smoke in the air and see the grain of the wood floors. The music blaring from the record player in the corner, making the walls vibrate just a little as foam formed at the corners of his friend’s slack lips, with those dark, dark eyes, so dark that he couldn’t see pupil from iris as all of the light in the room left them…_

He was sobbing with his whole body then, trying to scrub the image of the roommate prone in his living room from his brain as he swiped at the tears leaking from his eyes. His chest shuddered, his breathing irregular and uneven.

“I think about it every day… I-I think of wh-what I could have done if I h-had just _picked up the phone and called for help_. I-I think of how I s-stood there and saw him turn blue, h-how he went blue and I couldn’t… I couldn’t…”

The words were parsed out in a quick staccato of gasps, between the pain in his chest and through the halting of his lungs.

_He couldn’t breathe._

“Phil? Philip?”

Mona’s face, concerned, swam in his blackening vision, and he felt her hands come up to grab his shoulders, to cup his cheek, to let them drop so she could reach over and pick up the plastic bag for his clothes and tighten it under his chin while he kept gasping and gasping for air that never came until she tightened the bag over his lips to make a seal and all of the sudden _he could breathe again._

He let her hold it to him for another few minutes, regulating his breathing until he could fill his lungs on his own again. Patting the hands on his face weakly, she finally let the bag drop.

Philip sighed, reaching over to pick up the can he’d put down in his desperate bid for oxygen. His mouth was dry once again, and he’d rather drink beer than try and speak through a sticky tongue. He took a sip, the coolness from the carbonated drink allowing him to relax further. He’d stopped sweating, but he was still clammy from the panic attack he’d just clawed his way through.

She gave him a moment, gave him some space. But her fingers brushed the top of his knee through his jeans, hesitant and gentle.

He was on the right track.

“I…”, he began, weighing his words carefully. “I feel like I’ve stepped into a different life. I don’t remember anything but what I’ve been told for the most part…”

His voice cracked. “I feel like I’m carrying the burden of another man’s sins. I’m stuck in this-this endless cycle where I’m a slave to my past, but I don’t even remember what I’ve done to get me where I am at this point.”

Philip coughed, took another drink and let his words sink in.

Her hand, warm and solid, was now laying on top of his leg. She was looking down, her eyes hooded and leaking more tears than before. Mona had yet to speak up, but when Philip’s trembling hand put down his drink to rest on her shoulder, she collapsed inwards, curling into his side and allowing him to wrap his arm around her.

He could hear her breathing, feel the warmth of her exhales against his ribs. She was mercifully placed on the opposite side of the bullet wound in his hip, and leaning against him wholeheartedly.

She was the one he’d had the most physical contact with since his arrival in the 21st. Apart from medical procedures, people weren’t exactly lining up to hug the junkie kid living alone in a garage. Philip drew from it, like a plant turning to find the sun. Touch had been an important part of his life in the future, and it had been next to impossible to feel lonely in a shelter overflowing with twice the amount of people it was designed for.

He’d been without a friend for almost a month, all while living some of the worst moments of his life so far.

Trevor’s attempts at building a connection between the two of them were still in their infancy, and he had no real substance to his Protocol 5 but substance abuse. Marcy fed him bits of sympathy as she monitored him and his condition, but he needed more than military connections.

He needed Mona.

Letting the tension drop from his body, he allowed his relief to overtake him. Philip’s torso came to rely on her weight to keep him anchored, the two of them quietly crying in the cool night.

][][][][][][][

After a dozen minutes or so of silence, stretching until Philip thought he might break, Mona confirmed what her actions had already spoken for her.

“I didn’t…”, she began, pausing to consider. “I didn’t ever really know what happened. Steve’s mom told me some, I mean, she’s the one who had to… had to call. The cops didn’t really have a list to go through since Steve’s phone got smashed the night…”

Her fingers extended, searching to grasp him around his middle and draw herself closer. He adjusted, shifting his weight to accommodate her grip.

“I was at the funeral too… I saw you, waiting. I didn’t say anything, I was so scared that it had been… _not_ a mistake. That night, I mean.”

He felt another rush of heat, this time focused high in his cheeks as he felt shame overtake him. Was he so transparent that even someone he had spent a collective half-dozen hours with could cut to the heart of his guilt?

She continued, unaware of Philip’s upset. “They told me that because of the phone and how you left the scene, that the police would be looking into whether or not this had been… intentional.”

“It wasn’t.”

He surprised himself with his abruptness, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of her believing that he’d actively seek to hurt Stevie, that he would ever let anything at all make him raise a hand to the person who’d let him crash on his couch when Dan and Mary were in town, to the guy who’d nagged him through the last six months of classes, the one who’d let him cry on his shoulder after Val, who’d given him that shot and made him breathe again the night he felt the world leave his fingers through the blue in his hands and the needle still stuck in his bicep while Mona _screamed_ -

_Philip Pearson was still lurking._

“I’d never”, he swallowed. “I remember the second before it happened, I remember him smiling and offering to help me out with my shot too, he was laughing about it.”

Mona hadn’t looked up, but was playing with her fingers, staring intently at her chipping nail polish rather than acknowledge what he’d said.

“He was… he was happy, and I was happy, and… fuck, this whole thing is fucked”, he rushed out, freeing one hand to rake it through his hair to keep it from shaking.

“I’m not going to give up on you.”

“Sorry?” He almost thought he’d heard wrong; her conviction.

“I don’t care what few memories you have left, or what this thing has done to you or will still do”, she stated, looking up at him at last. “I want my friend back, even if it means making a whole new one.”

3326 took this in, breathing heavily as he did. He could feel the warm press of her, smell jasmine and stale smoke on her hair. The fingers on his available hand inched towards the hand she had currently resting on his knee, searching. They brushed against each other before allowing themselves to entwine slowly.

“I… I think I’d like that”, he ventured, her hand warm and dry in his own. He stared at their joined fingers, allowing his thumb to reach out and swipe under her sleeve. She shivered, tension appearing once more as she sat straight. But their hands remained clasped in one another, even as she drew away slightly.

“I want to help you work through this”, she started, squeezing his hand. “But I need you to be _present_ when I talk to you, I… I need you to tell me what’s going on in your life.”

Philip swallowed, pursing his lips for a moment and letting them fall. “It’s… things are rough right now. My doctor hasn’t had much success, and I’m still trying to pick up the pieces.”

His host’s addiction took a toll on him, and there was only so much that Marcy could manage between his situation and her own problems. Even just holding out as long as possible before hitting was playing on his last nerve, and on a daily basis. He was constantly on edge, shaking and running thoughts of his next score, his next high through his head. It sat at the back of his mind as he lived the past, as he tried to fight for a better future, as he tried to build a life in a foreign time and place and even when he brushed his goddamn teeth.

“I’m not going anywhere. If you’re still finding the pieces, I’ll help you look.”

Mona’s grip on his hand grew more solid as she spoke. He could almost see the smile she’d worn as they pored over pictures of dead men; of her friends.

“I just… I’m just wondering about one thing”, she added, cautious this time. She looked away from him, her feet scuffing together as she fidgeted. Her tone had turned so quickly that instantly, Philip was alert once more, ready to take in what curveball the universe was about to throw him next.

_At this point, I’m just wondering which asshole I pissed off in a past life._

_Because this whole thing has been nothing but karmic._

“I know that you’ve been… let’s call it ‘self-medicating’ and leave it there… for awhile. I mean, the whole time I’ve known you. I mean”, she repeated, rushing her words. “You were buying Oxys when we first met, so I’m not totally in the dark about this shit.”

He had no clue where she was going with this.

Mona took a deep breath. “I’m just worried about whether you’re actually going to treat your Crohn’s if you’re not just taking pills or shooting up to handle the pain anymore.”

If there had been anything that 3326 had been expecting, or dreading that she’d say, that was not it.

“I’m sorry, but _what_?”

][][][][][][][

“I really don’t know what you’re getting at here”, Philip said, furrowing his brow.

“You’ve always had it, as long as we’ve known each other”, Mona reiterated, giving him a look of confusion. “I mean, yeah, you’ve never been great about maintaining your meds because you like pills better, but… you _have to know_ that it’s the only reason we let you get away with this shit for so long.”

He rifled through his memories, trying to remember what ‘Crohn’s’ was.

_‘…an inflammatory bowel disease. It causes inflammation of your digestive tract, which can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition. Inflammation caused by Crohn's disease can involve different areas of the digestive tract in different…’_

_Right. That._

_What?_

“I don’t…”, he began. “I haven’t really… had any issues as far as I can remember. I mean, I’ve been kind of eating healthier lately. I don’t really eat meat, or dairy, or anything like that anymore.”

_Not accurate. You forgot about pizza._

Shaking his head, he recalled the way his stomach had rebelled after slice eight the night he’d stumbled onto it.

“I had some cheese pizza not too long ago and felt like shit after, but I thought it was just because I ate the whole thing”, he admitted. Mona smacked him on the arm.

“Idiot! This shit is serious! You’ve been ignoring it forever, but I’m not letting you get away with that again. Not after this whole shitstorm hit and you had a fucking stroke, you _moron_.”

“Ow”, he said absently, rubbing at his bicep. “I haven’t really had trouble apart from that, I didn’t even know I _had_ it, but I guess that not eating like total garbage might be helping?”

Mona watched him, clearly suspicious. Her gaze turned to his covered arms, heavy with implication but silent. After a moment, she nodded, considering it.

“I guess that that might work. Maybe. But it doesn’t explain how you can _afford_ to eat so well.”

Shooting her another confused look, Mona clarified.

“Your parents may have mentioned to Steve’s mom that they wouldn’t be subsidizing your living anymore. Said it was time they ‘stopped enabling your behaviour’”, she explained, scowling. “Which means that not only are they not paying your rent, but they’re not footing your grocery bill either. So, you need to tell me what you’ve been doing for money, or I’m going to be convinced that you’re doing stupid shit again.”

“Oh”, Philip answered. “That’s all you want to know?”

She nodded seriously, watching him with a wariness that hadn’t existed in the moments where they’d been reminiscing over old polaroids.

He’d lied to her before, then.

_Philip Pearson was the one who lied to her. Remember that._

“If you want to know, meet me at the Market Diner tomorrow at 4. I’ll show you how I make my money”, he replied, the beginnings of a smile creeping into the corners of his lips. “All legal; I promise.”

As if to prove his point, he extended his hand for her to shake. She took it prudently, grasping it for a moment and then releasing her hold.

“It’s a promise, then. The Market, 4, tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow”, he agreed, picking his beer up once more and taking another sip. Reaching over, she took the can from him and took a drink from it.

“It’s a date.”

][][][][][][][

When he’d finally floated back into his room at the base, the best of his earlier dose had worn thin, and the side-effects of his immunity shot were starting to set in.

The shadows were climbing his walls, reaching out to touch but never gaining purchase as he laid in his bed, unable to move. His stomach was roiling against him, _likely upset by the beer_ , but that was mostly an afterthought, as he dozed into a light nap

And woke up, limbs frozen and contorted to cradle and shield his belly from the war raging within, but he _couldn’t move them he couldn’t move at all and the thing at the end of his bed looked so much like Stevie._

_It watched him with empty eyes and slack lips, with vomit on his front and blue in his fingers as they stroked his ankle. Idle, casual enough to be familiar._

_He could feel everything he’d ate and drunk in the past two days moving through his digestive system, bumping into the turns and corners with edges that felt like the razor he used to shave his face clean in the mornings. They tore at him in ways he hadn’t even begun to consider until Mona had told him that he should be hurting, but like **this**. _

_He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t even lift his arm and reach for the spectre staring at him, sitting comfortably on cotton sheets soaked with his sweat. It sat, open mouthed and silent as tears streamed down Phil’s face, seeping into the mattress beneath his head._

_He could hear Mona crying, screaming his name in the background, far away from where he laid rooted on his side. In the fetal position, he shivered and twitched, seeing shapes behind the glass separating his room from the rest of the garage._

_He didn’t want this._

_He didn’t want any of this but then one morning he woke up and there it all was, laid out before him._

_He didn’t remember the first time he tried heroin. But he could tell you about what OxyContin tasted like running from the inside of his nose, down the back of his throat, about the wrenching coughs of freebasing, about the first time he made peace with the idea of sliding a needle under his skin._

_He’d cried the whole time, thinking of Stevie, who had only just gotten used to the ritual of grinding pills into dust. How he’d only just gotten practiced at chopping it along the mirror on their living room coffee table- because wasn’t that funny; the first time he’d done it, he’d nicked his finger on the blade and ruined the bump he’d been setting up. Now, he was a dab hand at the whole process, and could prep and snorts line in the time it took Phil to string together a sentence after he’d had his own. Stevie, who had fallen into his lifestyle- into his life, was going to be so, so hurt by this._

_Hindsight is 20/20._

_Because now here he was, watching the man he’d once called his best friend watch him wordlessly from three feet away, staring into nothing with blood running down from his left nostril._

_He wanted to apologize, to take it all back. If he could, he’d go back to the day that he’d stumbled onto Mona, cutting class at the school his dealer went to. He’d go back and walk right past the girl smoking a joint in the parking lot where he was supposed to meet the guy. He wouldn’t stop and make a joke, try and make her stop scowling and laugh for once instead. He’d keep walking, right past the person who’d introduced him to Stevie, right past the first person he’d called his._

_They’d been special, the three of them. They’d been a family._

_But he would throw all that good away, take it all back, if only it meant that Stevie could still be breathing, that Mona could go one night without grieving the boys who’d been hers, that they could all be apart and probably miserable but **alive.**_

_His uneven breath rang heavy in his ears, his heart pounding in his throat as Phil watched as the thing that had once been Stevie snapped his head back in a sudden move, unprompted by Phil’s frozen body. And with his skull touching the back of his neck, face parallel to the ceiling, Steve’s slack mouth snapped wide open and let out a scream._

_Phil cried harder, wishing with all that he had in that moment, that he’d never even been born._

][][][][][][][

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in my last semester of university at the moment, so things may be a bit slower going for updates for a bit, but once I'm done exams, I should be posting some more. Chapter 4 is being edited currently, and should be up soon. Thank you for the feedback, and I hope you enjoy!


	4. He Who Has a Why to Live Can Bear Almost Any How

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during episode 7 of season 1, squashed between the debilitating hallucinations and challenges of everyday life in the twenty-first century.

_“In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of ‘world history’- yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.”_

_-Friedrich Nietzsche_

][][][][][][

He’d stumbled into a waking nightmare. More so than most days, anyways.

Philip had awoken to the realization that this was his life now, and that he was going to have to continue living it. And that meant living through what Philip Pearson would have chosen.

The thing was, no matter how much he hated it, hated himself for it, Philip Pearson would always go back to heroin. He hated the want for it, the struggle to get it, the struggle to get it into _him_. But that didn’t change the fact that finding a fucking vein was harder than trying to thread a goddamn sewing needle with junk-sick hands.

3326 wasn’t sure how much his host had abused his body until his first collapsed vein.

He’d only been an intravenous user in the past six months or so, at least based on the photos and moments provided to him by Mona.

Though he couldn’t be entirely certain- clearly, Philip had been secretive about his habit.

_I’m not surprised. Mona would have kicked his ass if she’d been sure about it._

And yet, there he was, trying to find enough cover beneath a forgotten tarp behind a fast-food restaurant’s back alley, desperate to find a spot in his left arm to shoot in.

Panic was beginning to set in- cooked heroin had a short shelf life after you’d drawn blood back into the syringe, and he knew that his dose was about three minutes from a clotted mess that he’d never be able to get through the needle. Cursing under his breath, he felt down from his tourniquet to finally find a fat vein running from his armpit. He let forth a sigh of relief as he worked the metal under his skin and through the delicate membrane.

He wouldn’t admit this to himself, but he also threw out a silent prayer of thanks to The Director when he pushed the plunger down, flooding his body with endorphins and just pure _yes_.

Falling back from his crouch, onto his backside, he absently moved what felt like an arm to yank the needle free and loosen the belted bracelet he used to tie off his arm. Warm, syrupy sensations moved through him, unfettered.

_This is what seeing God must feel like._

He resented himself for the thought as it occurred to him, the rushing of the world ringing through his ears. Everything was fuzzy, and comfortable, and he didn’t quite care about the damp smell of cardboard and urine anymore because they faded into the background in place of this euphoric moment.

His neck felt lazy, and his stomach didn’t want to tear him apart from the inside anymore. He no longer felt like a malfunctioning garbage disposal attachment, and instead like everything was fluid, and moved through him like water.

Laughing, 3326 felt like he could almost feel Philip Pearson and him inhabiting the same space comfortably. And Philip wanted to go for a stroll.

Stumbling to his feet, he ran one hand through his hair, playing with the knotted strands for a moment before he found the zippo in his pocket instead to occupy his fingers.

Today was going to be a good day.

][][][][][][][

“What the fuck, man? What do you mean, ‘what are we doing here’? _You_ dragged _my_ ass halfway across town for this place.”

Ray’s voice was echoing around him, and Philip blinked slowly, trying to will his lead eyelids to stay open.

“But what _is_ here?”, he replied, his voice inching along as he tried to take the words out of his mouth and put them into the real world. And then, he remembered that sound was nothing more than wiggly air. He giggled a bit, letting his head loll from one shoulder to the other.

_All the better to see you with._

Sighing, Ray, sitting across the booth from him, buried his haggard face in his palms. He ran them over the three-day stubble and over the slicked-back hair to rest at the back of his neck.

“You’re not making this easy, kid.”

Philip considered what Ray was trying to say, and then abandoned following that thought when he got distracted by his reflection in the stainless napkin holder. His jaw was _so_ wide.

And then he registered Ray’s fingers, snapping in front of his face.

“Hey, Trainspotting, I need you to tell me what we’re doing here.”

Slowly, he moved his eyes to meet his lawyer’s. “Are you talking… about the book, or the hobby? Because the _hobby_ is a waste of time. Like… why are you looking for-for trains? They’re so… slowww…”

His voice was having trouble with consonants today. They were like doing a puzzle with his tongue. In the dark.

_So, kind of like giving head?_

Philip laughed, reaching out for the sugar and missing, his fingers two inches short from gaining purchase. Instead, it was slid across the table at him with another long-suffering sigh. “You want cream, too, then?”

And then he remembered that he had a mug of coffee under his face, curls of steam kissing his cheeks. His clumsy hands spilled about a quarter of a cup of sugar in, and he made for the little single-serving plastic containers of dairy when he remembered what it did to his digestive tract.

“I don’t… I don’t do…”, he started, trying to summon the energy to keep his eyes open at the same time. He couldn’t find the words; they slipped through his limp fingers, and so he opted for the next best option. “’M vegan.”

Cursing quietly under his breath, his companion flagged down a waitress as she moved to refill another diner’s cup. Ray asked something about soy, or almond, or- they made _oat_ and _coconut_ milk?

Suddenly, 3326 was very glad that he’d decided to stick to his diet. _So many options._

When a carton was finally plopped down in front of him, he wrangled a smile onto his face before tipping it into his coffee. Ray watched him as he stirred, the spoon clinking against ceramic.

“Look, Phil…” he began, taking a big swig of his own drink ( _dark roast, no milk, no sugar please_ ). “You’ve gotta let me help you out here. And I can’t do that till you tell me why we’re at a restaurant that serves breakfast 24 hours a day, a twenty minute drive from your little hidey hole.”

There was someone he’d been meaning to meet there, that much he knew.

Thinking hard through the haze of too many endorphins and drugs, he managed to draw out defining features. Short, dark hair. Red lipstick. Angry often. Angry most of the time.

Standing in the diner doorway.

“ _Mona_.”

][][][][][][][

She’d made eye contact with him about a minute after walking through the entrance, and made a beeline for their booth.

This time, she was in a yellow plaid skirt, a black t-shirt and a bomber jacket that looked about three sizes too large with patches on the right breast and back. Her boots made loud stomping sounds as she got closer, adding an inch to her short frame. She approached the booth single-mindedly but paused a beat when she saw Ray sitting across from him.

Taking in the scene before her, Mona slid in next to the lawyer, shrugging her coat off behind her. Her arms were exposed for the first time since he could remember meeting her, and black ink was spaced intermittently along her skin.

Philip couldn’t focus his eyes long enough to make out the details of her tattoos, though realized the moment she’d walked in that he couldn’t allow himself to dissolve into an inebriated mess like he could in front of Ray. _She thinks you’re already in recovery, remember?_

Huffing, he pulled himself up to sit straight and made more of an effort to keep the vacant, dopey expression off of his face. To keep his frantic hands busy, he wrapped them around his coffee cup, a vague sense of warmth emanating through the haze of drugs. Blinking, he focused his gaze on the space between her eyebrows to avoid direct eye contact but still appear engaged and present.

_This feels a little too familiar of an act to be comfortable._

“Another lawyer? Really?”

She sounded almost dismissive, and he could practically hear her rolling her eyes. This was obviously not her first encounter with one, although Ray only barely met the conditions set forth by the profession. The man was clearly accomplished at his work, though came off as far too rough around the edges to fulfill any stereotype of the legal world. Philip mused about how she’d managed to pick that out in Ray, especially considering how he looked almost as homeless as he did at the moment.

His suit was rumpled, he’d clearly spilled coffee on his sports jacket, and an undeniable fog of stale cigarette smoke hovered around him at any given point. His hair, although slicked back and styled impeccably at most times, was too long for the style it was cut in and threatened to escape his hair gel entirely.

“Yes, actually”, Ray snarked, putting his mug back down on the table. “But I’m here as a friend.”

Scoffing, Mona let loose a sharp, barking laugh. “Right. Because this definitely counts toward your billables. Tell me, how much is he paying you to keep you on retainer?”

Her sarcasm was biting, and her words struck a chord deep within him. Deep beneath the weight of his dose, he could swear that he felt hurt.

“Actually, _sweetheart_ , Phil is a buddy of mine. His case was pro-bono when I first met him”, Ray fired back, his teeth bared in a cutting grin. “But hey, the guy keeps me in shitty suits and shittier habits nowadays.”

Philip smiled weakly, nodding. “He’s… a friend.”

“That was a real long pause, right there”, she answered, clearly deep in thought now that the dynamics of their group had been laid out. “And you still haven’t told me how you’re making money, which is making this whole”- she gestured between him and Ray- “thing seem way the fuck more sketchy than it should be.”

“Also”, she added, “my name is Mona. Not ‘sweetheart’ or any other patronizing bullshit term of endearment you want to tack on here. I don’t know you like that.”

“Geez, kid”, Ray said, turning back to Philip. “You really know how to pick ‘em. A real gem, your girl is.”

He almost felt inclined to nod along, to agree that yes, Mona _was_ a real gem. And then he realized that the entire exchange had been steeped in sarcasm. But then came the other implications of that statement.

“Not his girlfriend”, she muttered, looking down quickly at the menu. She continued to stare at it for the next minute, her gaze fixed directly on the lunch specials; unmoving. Her knuckles were white, contrasting with the chipped pink of her nail polish and the red of the menu.

“Well, I’m not exactly his lawyer either, _Mona_ ”, Ray retorted. The man took up his cup again and drunk deeply.

“You gonna get something or are we just here to make friends?”

Philip should have known that they’d get along like a house on fire. They were too similar to not clash, and if he’d been conscious enough in the first place, he’d have just hopped in a cab instead of letting Ray herd him into his smoke-stained sedan.

The waitress was hovering at the head of their table, her pen poised over a notepad expectantly. Sighing, Mona ordered a plate of scrambled eggs, home fries and a side of baked beans. Ray muttered something about a piece of key lime pie, and Philip managed to gather himself long enough to flip to the page depicting meat alternatives and point at a mushroom burger and soup.

As soon as the waitress moved on, Mona twisted her head to face Ray once more.

“Then are you an errand-boy then? God knows the Pearsons have more of those than they could ever need on their payroll”, she fired back. Clearly, this wasn’t over yet.

“Look, I saw my buddy here in a bad spot, figured I’d offer him a ride.”

His voice was short, and brokered an end to the ‘lawyer and retainer’ conversation. “I still don’t know why we’re meeting your… _Mona_ … here.”

“She said… she wanted to know how I make my money”, Philip spoke, trying desperately to enunciate. He sounded the words out carefully, taking care to round out the vowels and clip his consonants. Her shoulders tensed as he began to speak, and her mouth became a pressed, thin line of dark red. “She just… wants to know I’m okay.”

_That wasn’t that bad, was it?_

“I guess you could call me his bookie. Or really, I’m more of the guy who goes to the bookie for him. Your… friend makes me good money.”

Furrowing her brow, she turned back to face him.

“Gambling? How the fuck are you making enough money gambling to support yourself _and_ pay Erin Brokovich here?”

Ray scowled at the dig but was quick to fire back. “Our boy won the lottery. Small fortunes don’t exactly lend themselves well to unemployment. So, we took it on ourselves to… invest.”

“Right”, Mona replied, deadpan. “Because gambling is _such_ a steady source of income.”

“It’s not… really gambling…”, 3326 cut in, trailing off. She shot him a long, motioning for him to keep talking. “It’s math.”

She shot him a look, motioning once more for him to expand. “I calculate the odds, and I’ve come up with a… reliable way to predict outcomes.”

“Statistics, right?”

He nodded, and there was a moment of silence as Mona processed this.

Even Ray was starting to fidget to disrupt the growing tension forming between him as she stared at him, quiet for once.

“Phil.”

Startled, he allowed himself to meet her gaze with her own. Her face showed her confusion, and her worry.

“You don’t do math. You don’t like it, and the last time I checked, you can’t even figure out how to solve for x”, she began slowly, flicking a look down at his hands, still clutching on for dear life to his coffee. “You told me once that your parents had to make a very generous donation to your high school to let you graduate without your higher math.”

“How the _fuck_ did you learn to see the future?”

_Speak, you idiot, or she’ll see through everything._

“…oh”, he mumbled, lamely. “I didn’t- I don’t… I don’t know, I mean, I just bought a lottery ticket, and then I won. The next thing I knew, I started watching horse racing because it seemed like easy money, until all of the sudden, it all made sense to me.”

“I mean, the numbers”, he amended, realizing how strange it all sounded. “All of those variables just… stopped being variables and started being definite outcomes.”

He was drawing deeply on his last dregs of concentration and attention. The fog of opiates had yet to leave him lucid, and he was still making a concerted and definite effort to sit upright, keep his eyes open and not slur his words.

Mona considered this for a moment, before nodding half-heartedly.

“I mean, I guess you could rediscover math after you forgot practically everything but your own name. Maybe the brain really is a computer after all”, she joked. “Alan Turing aside.”

“Wait, wait, wait. What the _fuck_? You have some sort of amnesia shit going on too? On top of all of this?”

Right. Ray. He hadn’t fed him the same lie as Mona. At least, not yet.

“I… had a… a _thing_.”

_What’s the word again? It’s a thing that makes it so your brain stops working, y’know, like a heart attack for your head. Come on. You know this one._

_“…sudden death of brain cells due to lack of oxygen, caused by blockage of blood flow or rupture of an artery to the brain…”_

But before he could remember the word for ‘stroke’, his friend had already stepped in to explain.

“He had a stroke, the night the whole… incident… went down”, Mona summarized, her words clipped and terse. “He’s got some major retrograde amnesia because of it.”

“Among some other things, _apparently_ ”, Ray muttered, clearly upset. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about this? Did you not think that it could be affecting you?”

Philip squinted at him. “But you just want me ‘round for my big bets… don’tcha?”

He was slipping into the warm embrace of the drugs running rampant, wreaking havoc on his system. It was starting to slip into his speech, and goddamn if his head wasn’t getting real heavy.

“I already told you, that’s not the only reason. Jesus, kid”, he ran his hands over his hair for the umpteenth time. “I wouldn’t have let you keep this shit up if I’d known. _Fuck,_ now I feel like a real asshole.”

Philip shifted his attention from Mona, to Ray. The man looked genuinely upset, even hurt that he hadn’t been invited along with the whole affair. Of course, he was under the impression that it was the _truth_.

“I knew that I shouldn’t have just left you, for fuck’s sake, you’re a fucking junkie”, he mumbled, seemingly to himself. “And here I am, trying to help you get your act together after I found you wandering around all doped up and I didn’t even think to ask if you had other shit going on, _fuck_.”

_And you’ve just been outed. Congratulations, the only person willing to look past your bullshit and actually care about you just found out one of the many, many things you’ve lied to her about._

_Good going, genius._

_What good is your future knowledge now?_

“ ** _Wait_**.”

And then, his attention slid right back over to Mona. Who looked not only hurt, or betrayed, or even just angry. He knew it was because he’d told her that he had it under control, that he was clean. But this time, it wasn’t just about him, it was about Stephen too.

“ ** _You’re still on heroin?”_**

][][][][][][][

It felt as if all of the sound in the busy diner had been drained out, and the spotlight shone on their single, solitary booth.

This was all that mattered, now.

“I…”, 3326’s throat had closed up, and he had to swallow before he could force out any words. He knew that this moment was inevitable, and that his lies would definitely catch up to him at some point, but he’d expected to have more time.

But then, Ray spoke up.

“Look, you seem… nice. Or at least, interested in Phil’s well-being enough that you need to hear this shit”, the man started, draining the last dregs of his coffee and reaching for a napkin.

In a tense moment of silence, Ray wiped his mouth, then crumpled the piece of tissue tightly in one hand and pitched it across the booth. It hit him in the forehead, bouncing off under the table. Shocked, he was even more unbalanced than he had been moments before.

“All I know is a few things, but I bet that that’s even more than you do, right now.”

Mona started, her stance growing defensive. “You don’t know shit about what I know!”

Muttering under his breath, the man reached into his breast pocket and tossed a mess of crushed receipts. Pulling them apart, he laid them out flat in front of her, picking them up, squinting and rearranging them into some kind of order.

As he continued to sort, Mona continued to stew, until the waitress interrupted them all with food. Oblivious to the tension at the table, she hummed to herself as she slid plates from her arms onto the table, setting them carefully in front of each person.

“Thanks”, Ray managed, his attention still glued to those grubby pieces of paper. He pushed aside his pie to make space again, while Mona picked up a fork and started attacking her beans with a fury that left them more mash than solid. No one ate.

He was actually impressed at her attempt at restraint. Usually, she seemed to act directly on her anger or hurt.

_I wonder if her and Carly would get along…_

Shaking his head to empty that thought away before it could grow legs and escape on its own, Philip tuned back in to Ray’s efforts.

“Do you see how much money your buddy’s managed to make in the time he started going to the track?”

Ray’s tone was direct, and he was clearly biting his tongue. If anything, the man was an excellent judge of character; he knew exactly when to hold off, and when to play his hand. Gesturing to the carefully sorted receipts, he then picked up a fork and started to dig into his pie.

Mona’s fingers hovered over them one by one as she craned her neck to read them, her lips moving silently as she appeared to be doing some sort of arithmetic as her eyes narrowed. There was a moment of silence, punctuated by Ray’s cutlery scraping against the plate.

He didn’t think he could bear to eat, even if the knot in his throat loosened enough to let the coffee through. His eyes kept sliding shut, and he had to blink hard to open them again.

“Holy fuck.”

Her head snapped up, and she looked over at him again for the first time since her discovery.

“You actually make this much reliably?”

He managed a nod, trying and failing to let the wide smile from slipping onto his face. He’d worked hard for this, he should be _proud._

_As if you did any actual work. You know that this is basically the same as rote memorization, right?_

Dismissing the voice in his head that wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie, he focused his gaze once more on his friend, whose brow was furrowed.

“And do you know how much of it he kept?”

Ray’s interjection shook him further out of his haze. Where exactly was he going with this?

“He had me buy a foreclosed garage with part of it, and some went to me. But the rest?”

Mona sat straighter, still looking at Philip, and not Ray, who continued on to reveal his shame, his _guilt_.

“He gave it to the family of one Stephen Vallini, and of one Detective Daniel Gower.”

Silence. And then…

“ _What?_ ”

“I mean, he kept _some_ of it, we did need capital to post bets, after all”, Ray continued, pointing out an amount on one of the bills showing how the cashier’s check was cashed and divvied up. “But about a hundred thousand dollars have gone to each in the past month. I would know, I drop off the money myself.”

“What the fuck?”, she groaned, sliding onto her elbows. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, smudging her makeup. “What in the actual fuck?”

“ _I’m so confused._ ”

She buried her face in her arms, while Ray shot him a look that he couldn’t read. All he could do was sit there and watch her clutch her arms as they circled her head, resting on the table. With every passing moment, she grew more and more agitated, before she whipped her head up, eyes red but without tears.

“I…” She stopped, thinking. She appeared to reconsider, as her lips turned down sharply into a flat line. “I’m glad that you’re taking steps to make things right where you feel like you’ve gone wrong, but…”

Her eyes settled on Ray.

“ _Why in the ever-loving fuck are you giving a heroin addict cash?”_

Her tone was ice, and her jaw worked as she pursed her lips tightly. If looks could kill…

“ _And you._ ”

_Oh, fuck._

She’d turned her ire back on him. All of the sudden, he had to contend with Mona’s angry, hurt eyes. _Now, she was crying._

_You asshole._

“This shit does not justify the _stupid fucking decisions you’ve been making._ You’re not going to distract me this time, or lie to me, or _try to hide this shit from me ever again when you KNOW WHAT IT DID TO YOUR BEST FUCKING FRIEND!”_

_You’ve fucked up for real this time. You can’t lie. You can’t hide. You can’t even run from this now. You’re trapped here, in this situation, in this habit, and if you keep on going like you have, you’ll always be here, you pathetic excuse for a-_

_“-FLAMING SACK OF DOG SHIT!”_

_Eloquent. But, accurate._

But then, after what seemed like an eternity of yelling, arms moving frantically to support her arguments, she stopped, paused for a moment and then shook her head.

“That’s it. I’m done.”

There was something hollow about her tone. It seemed final, and empty of emotion.

But then, she started shrugging her coat back on, gathering her purse. Her expression was dark, and unchanging as she looked at Ray, and them at him. Her eyes lingered for a moment, and then she got to her feet.

“Until you get your shit together, don’t talk to me. I don’t want to hear it. I’m fucking done dealing with your mess. I have a life outside of your problems, and I’m going to go focus on that instead of on a lost cause.”

Hurt ran through him in a way he usually couldn’t feel after shooting up, starting in his chest, icy-hot and running through him until he felt it everywhere, even his pores and the ends of his hair. It settled in the pit of his stomach as she turned on her heel without a second glance, and marched out of the diner, slamming the door behind her.

_She’s gone._

“HEY! Hey, you ass, you forgot to pay for your food!”, Ray called after her, cupping his hands over his mouth for the sound to carry, but she was long gone by the time he finished speaking.

Huffing in disgust, Ray tossed his fork back onto the table with a _clank_.

“Fucking bitch.”

“Don’t talk about her like that”, Philip shot back, surprised that he could manage words in the moment.

Sighing, the lawyer leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Like I said, kid, you really do know how to pick ‘em.”

][][][][][][

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late post, I recently graduated and now I'm gearing up to move out in August... Hopefully I'll be able to get some writing done between that and work!

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone else feel completely heartbroken when they realized that at the end of season 2 when they abducted the team's loved ones, the closest they could find for Philip was Ray? I mean, the best they could do was some guy who works for him as a procurer? An acquaintance, at best! I'm sure that they were hoping to expand the character backstory in future seasons, but since it's unlikely that this will happen, I figured that Philip Pearson deserved to get a past. Everyone else on the team has a complex set of relationships, and have to face the consequences of past decisions made by their hosts. I thought that exploring this part of Philip's character would make for (hopefully!) interesting writing. So I've done my best to build a set somewhat-plausible relationships for him to explore, and to try and create a life and interests for him before his addiction. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!


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